


The Flower That Blooms In Adversity (Is The Most Rare And Beautiful Of All)

by everyperfectsummer, Sweet_Tea_Owl



Series: Author's favorites [7]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: And Of Course - Freeform, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Requited Love, Suicidal Ideation, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-03
Updated: 2017-01-03
Packaged: 2018-09-14 10:10:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9176248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everyperfectsummer/pseuds/everyperfectsummer, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sweet_Tea_Owl/pseuds/Sweet_Tea_Owl
Summary: When someone falls in unrequited love, flowers begin growing inside their body, gradually killing them. The flowers go away if the love becomes returned or if a surgical operation removes the flowers. However, surgery removes not only the flowers but the feeling of love itself, and Barry has never been willing to give that up.Update: now with apodficby Litra!





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Liu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liu/gifts).



> Content warnings at the end.  
> Also, while this may seem that romantic love is being prioritized over platonic love, the key is that the love he feels is unrequited. If he loves someone platonically and they only romantically love him back, he’d still get hanahaki.

_"The flower that blooms in adversity is the most rare and beautiful of all"_ \- Mulan

* * *

 

Barry has been coughing up flowers for what seems like all his life. It’s not a deadly case, not for him - his unrequited feelings are for someone who loves him platonically. When Joe drags him to a doctor, concerned at the first sight of petals, the doctor monitors him for a few months and then concludes that whoever he has unrequited feelings for clearly loves him back, just not in the way he wants her to love him.

 

The fact that it’s Iris goes unspoken between him and Joe, but they both know, and both know that the other knows. Joe gently tries to steer Iris into falling for Barry a few times, but Barry finally tells Joe to stop. His disease isn’t killing him; it’s chronic, but it’s livable, and people manage to go their whole lives living like this. He doesn’t want Iris to love him because of a stupid flower disease creating a sense of obligation; he wants her to love him because she loves him, nothing else.

 

Over the years, he gets used to coughing up petals, and everyone he knows adapts to his condition as well. He got a medical single in college, because hanahaki flower petals are considered biohazardous, and has had to get constant doctor’s appointments since so that they can monitor the growth of the flowers, just in case his condition worsens.

 

By the time he’s 26, he has a routine: wake up, fish out petals from between his teeth and on his pillows that he’s coughed up during the night, and get ready for work. Throughout the day, he coughs up several iris petals, sometimes more, sometimes less, depending on the swells of his heart.

 

He’s not the only one at the station with this problem, and so it goes unacknowledged, with the only sign of his illness being a biohazard disposal bin specifically for flowers by his workstation, and semi annual meetings with Singh to reassure him that his condition hasn’t worsened.

 

It’s such a routine, such a normality, that he’s completely blindsided when one day he starts coughing up something new - not the familiar irises he’s coughed up every day for years, but something different, an entire small white flower that google tells him is a snowdrop.

 

The hanahaki resources site tells him that they represent purity and hope, and something in the latter resonates with him.

 

He knows that the petals are meant to symbolize, in some way, the feelings or the person for whom the unrequited love is felt. Irises were never a particularly difficult thing to figure out the symbolism for - but this, this flower is new, and he doesn’t recognize it. Has something fundamental changed about his relationship with Iris? Is it because of Eddie? Is it because Barry’s finally given up hope of Iris ever loving him?

 

Something feels off about all of those theories, but Barry doesn’t have a better one. Then, he gets called to a crime scene and doesn’t think about it anymore for days - not until he’s at STAR Labs, and feels the familiar tickle in the back of his throat. He pulls out a tissue, and coughs up a petal into it. He can tell it’s not an iris by the shape of the petal alone, but seeing it on the tissue confirms it. He’s still coughing up snow drops. Whatever caused the change, it seems to be permanent.

 

“Whoa, dude,” Cisco says, “that is not an iris.”

 

“Thanks,” Barry responds drily, “I hadn’t noticed.”

 

“How long has this been going on?” Caitlin seems noticeably upset. “We’re your doctors, you have to tell us important medical information! This could mean that your condition is worsening - if something’s changed about how much you care about Iris, or how much she cares about you, you could _die_ , Barry, this is serious!”

 

“It’s just been a few days,” he reassures her, but she’s not mollified at all.

 

“We are doing a complete scan of your system this instant, and increasing your monitoring schedule by - well, by a lot!” she says, ushering him towards the medical suite where he gets his check ups.

 

He’s not surprised when Caitlin tells him that the flowers in his chest show signs of accelerating growth.

 

“But Iris still loves you!” Cisco says, a scientist probing at a problem he can’t solve.

 

“It’s not Iris,” Barry says, knowing the words are true as they leave his mouth.

 

“Who is it?” Caitlin and Cisco ask in tandem, both of them a mixture of confused and concerned.

 

He shakes his head. “I don’t know,” and it’s true, he doesn’t, but he know he will, if he thinks about it too hard.

 

“Ok,” Caitlin accepts his answer skeptically, “I do have some good news. You have accelerated healing, so you can recover faster from the damage the hanahaki inflicts on you. Meanwhile, the hanahaki is based on the _other_ person, not you, so it’s growing at a normal rate, for unrequited love. It’s even a little on the slow side, so whoever it is probably cares about you at least, even if they don’t love you.”

 

“But it’s still terminal,” Barry says flatly.

 

Her mouth tightens. “Yes,” the words come out reluctantly, “but you’ll have a few years. Probably two years before physical activity becomes impossible, and another year or two before you die, if how much you care and how much they care remains constant.”

 

Barry tries hard not to think about who he could have fallen in love with, as Cisco says, “Well, if we know Barry, his side at least will stay the same.”

 

* * *

 

 

The one good thing to come out of this whole “aliens attacking earth” thing is that his friends are coming - Oliver, Kara, the Legends. Seeing all his friends again is going to be nice, especially since Team Flash...aren't his friends as much, these days.

 

And then all the Legends get off the ship, and there are new people he doesn’t recognize, and the one he was hoping for is gone.

 

Ray tells him that Len died a hero, and Barry’s chest feels as though it’s holding a grove rather than a single plant.

 

“No,” Barry corrects Ray, “a Legend.”

 

He thinks of the looks in Len’s eyes when he’d said there was good in him, thinks of Len calling him to tell him he was leaving with the Legends, and something in his chest twists. He realizes just why his flowers have changed. His relationship with Iris has changed, yes, but that’s not the reason the flowers have changed - if it was just about his fading feelings, the flowers would have vanished completely. Instead, they simply switched varieties, and the real reason for that is that now he’s in love with Len.

 

Which means that his case of hanahaki disease now has no possibility of being cured.

 

With Iris, she loved him platonically, and there were always hopeful signs - a kiss in one timeline, a love confession in another, a newspaper article from the future,  all pointing to the fact that one day, she could love him romantically. But Len...Barry never had a shot with Len, while he was alive, and now that he’s dead…

 

 _Well,_ he thinks bitterly, _at least his death didn’t lower the odds much on him loving me back._ Len was always out of Barry’s league - too smooth, too cool, too self assured. Of course, he was also a criminal, a killer, someone who’d killed people just to test Barry. But he’d grown past that, gotten over it, joined the Legends, died a hero. Barry just wishes that his personal growth had ended up with a picket fence, 2.5 kids, and a dog, instead of death.

 

With the knowledge of his impending demise, it’s an easy choice to decide to turn himself over to the dominators. He’s shocked when his friends stop him, especially Cisco. Mick’s reference to Len breaks Barry’s heart further, and it’s in Len’s memory that Barry decides to fight.

 

* * *

 

He thinks long and hard about getting the surgery, removing his feelings for Len along with the flowers that are slowly killing him, but he can’t. Even if the rest of Central, the world, will suffer without the Flash after his death...he’s given up too much of what he loves for the sake of others, for the sake of the world. His career. His friends. His _parents_ . His entire life, really, dedicating all his time and energy on saving other people. He didn’t get to have Len. He can at least keep his memory, even if it kills him. Even though it _will._

 

* * *

 

 

Just as no one bothered to tell Barry that Len had died, no one had bothered to tell him that he was back either, and so he’s taken completely by surprise when he runs into Len at a bar on the outskirts of Central one evening after patrol, where Barry had come to refuel a little bit, surreptitiously (alcohol may not affect him, but it does have a _lot_ of calories).

 

“Scarlet,” Len says in greeting, and Barry can feel the plant inside of him growing just from that single word. He coughs, unable to hold it back, and the petals falls into the curve of his elbow, shoved in front of his face just in time.

 

He gingerly picks each petal of the sleeve, and looks for the biohazard flower container that all public buildings are obligated to have. As he does so, he realizes that Len is giving him a strange look.

 

“I’m no botanist, but those don’t look much like irises to me,” Len says.

 

“What?”

 

“Your flow _ers_. The last time we met, you were choking on flowers for the lovely miss West. Pining over someone else now? Or feeling differently towards her?”

 

Barry swallows, search for the biohazard container forgotten. “Some..someone else,” he admits.

 

Len raises an eyebrow. “So, at your rate of falling in love, you should be stuck on this girl until you’re my age.”

 

Barry smiles ruefully. “It’s a guy,” he corrects. “And...I won’t live to be your age.”

 

At Len’s inquiring look, he elaborates. “This person doesn’t love me at all, not even platonically. Which means that this time, my hanahaki is terminal.”

 

“Even with your super healing?"

 

"How did you – " Barry decided not to dwell to much on how Len knew about that, "never mind don't tell me. Yes, even with my healing. It’ll take me longer to die, but they’re never going to love me, so I’ll still die eventually."

 

Len’s mouth tightens. “Then whoever it is is a fool, because anyone who meets you should love you at least a little bit.”

 

“What?”

 

“You’re a good person,” Len tells him, “and you deserve to be loved. Whoever this person is, that you know well enough to love, must know you well enough to see the sort of person you are, and if they do, I don’t see how they can not love you.”

 

Barry wants to laugh and cry at the same time. “I think they agree,” he says, carefully, “but...just because they think I should be loved doesn’t mean that they actually love me.”

 

To Barry’s complete shock, he’s drawn into a hug. He stiffens, but hugs back. When Len pulls away, he realizes that the other man looks sad.

 

“Keep me updated on your condition, ok Scarlet?”

 

Barry finally lets his confusion show. “What do you care?”

 

“Lisa nearly died of hanahaki for the girl you call the Top, once. It’s not...it’s not a good way to go. You deserve better.”

 

Hope Barry hadn’t realized had been rising in his chest falls. Len doesn’t really care about _him_ , he just cares about Lisa and this reminds him of her. He’s stupid for possibly thinking otherwise.

 

Len’s pulls out a pen and paper, and Barry spares a moment to think that Len makes a good representative for the Boy Scouts with the way he’s always prepared, and then he hands the paper to Barry.

 

“Text me, with how you’re feeling. And let’s meet up here, next week.”

 

Barry grabs it with the hand that’s not holding flower petals, Len’s concern for him clutched in one hand and his love for Len in the other.

 

Of course, the flowers he’s holding are also proof that Len doesn’t love him back, but he tries not to think about it that way.

 

“Here? Not Saints and Sinners?”

 

“The fact that you think I want to meet there is exactly why we can’t meet there. Everyone knows they can find me at Saints, so it’s not a good place for me to go.” Barry thinks about that, and nods.

 

“Ok, here. Monday? At 7?"

 

Len smiles at him, and then walks away, leaving Barry alone with his hands full of unrequited love.

 

* * *

 

They meet up, next Monday, and the Monday after that, until it’s like clockwork. Despite the sheer amount of things he has to do, despite all of the Flash drama and work drama, he always tries to make room for meeting Len, even if he’s half an hour late, or can only stay for ten minutes. And Len seems to prioritize him as well, showing up on time, listening to Barry go on and on about Flash problems with Savitar, work problems with Julian, his problems with his friends.

 

Ironically, his medical check ups are on Monday too. It hurts, having to get tested for proof that Len doesn’t care about him right before meeting with Len, but he needs the testing, and wouldn’t give up meeting him for the world, so he sticks with it.

 

One day, Caitlin tells him his hanahaki disease is stabilizing. It’s Tuesday afternoon, right after work, and he came right over because Caitlin said she had “non urgent news about your test results.” He got the hint to not leave work to talk to her, but did worry enough to go over as soon as work was done.

 

“What’s wrong, Cait?” he asks, worrying that she’ll tell him he has months or weeks to live.

 

“It’s not terminal anymore.”

 

“What?”

 

“Whoever it is you love, they don’t love you romantically, but they do love you.”

 

Time slows around him as she finishes the sentence, the speed force giving him a second to breathe, to process the information. Sure, he still has flowers growing inside of him, so Len doesn’t love him romantically. But he does love him.

 

And now his case isn’t terminal anymore. Should he tell Len? Put an end to the constant texting that only began so that Len could monitor his condition, put an end to their weekly meetups, put an end to their friendship?

 

 _Hell no!_ a voice that sounds suspiciously like Cisco exclaims in his mind, and Barry makes up his mind. He doesn’t want to lie to Len, but...it’s not really lying if Len doesn’t ask, right?

 

Not saying anything works well until three weeks later, when Len casually says, “So _o_ _._ I haven’t seen you cough up a flower in a while, just a few petals here and there. You not pining anymore?”

 

Barry can feel himself turning red. “No, I...I still love them.”

 

Len smiles, but there’s something sad in it. “So, they love you back?”

 

Barry shakes his head. “Platonically. So...it’s still partially unrequited, but only partially. So I’m not terminal anymore. So I can understand if you don’t want to meet up again.”

 

Len cocks an eyebrow at him. “That’s a lot of ‘so’s’ in one sentence.”

 

“ _Len.”_

 

“...and I’d like to keep meeting up, unless you object. We started hanging out because I care about you and was concerned about you, and the former is still true.”

 

Barry reaches across the table to hold Len’s hand. “That means a lot,” he says, feeling a grin split his face.

 

* * *

 

 

At this point, everyone in Barry’s life has noticed the change in flowers, even Julian. Or perhaps not “even”, given how close he and and Julian have become. They’re friends and enemies by turns, these days. _Frenemies,_ his inner Cisco supplies. Anyway, even he has noticed the change in flower type, and the decrease in how many flowers he’s coughing up. Which means he, along with everyone else, is asking Barry about who he’s fallen in love with.

 

“No one you know,” he tell him.

 

“It’s not you anymore, so you don’t need to know,” he tells Iris.

 

“It doesn’t matter,” he tells Cisco and Caitlin.

 

“Don’t worry about it,” he tells Joe.

 

“I don’t know,” he tells Len, and for some reason, that’s the hardest to say.

 

All of them take it at face value at first, but gradually start pushing, Iris first of all.

 

“I don’t see why you won’t just tell me who it is! They can’t be that embarrassing.”

 

“They’re not embarrassing,” he tells her, “it’s just...you wouldn’t be able to keep it a secret, and I can’t have them find out. I can’t, Iris.”

 

“But they love you enough for you to cough up less petals than you were a few months ago.”

 

“Which means I’m not going to risk scaring them off so that they stop loving me entirely,” he counters.

 

Iris frowns at him, but drops the subject.

 

Caitlin is the next person to bring it up. “Your flowers, Barry, they’re receding.”

 

“What?”

 

“Whoever you love, they love you back.”

 

He shakes his head. “No. That’s not possible.”

 

“It’s happening,” she insists.

 

He shakes his head again, but hope is growing inside of him, twining around the flowers in his chest.

 

“Or maybe…”

 

“Maybe what?”

 

“Maybe your accelerated healing is stronger than the flowers!” She seems triumphant. “I know Dr. Wells – the first Dr. Wells – or I guess the second? The reverse Wells? Anyway, I know he was being manipulative when he talked about all of the diseases you could cure, but if you’ve found a way to cure hanahaki without surgery or requited love...imagine how many people you could save! I’d just have to run a few tests.”

 

He smiles at her, although his heart is sinking. “Run all the tests you like.”

 

* * *

 

Next Monday night, after dinner, Len walks him outside afterwards. “So, I guess I’ll see you next week?” Barry asks, running his fingers through his hair.

 

Len shifts his weight back and forth before he says “I’m in love with you. I thought, at first, that you were in love with someone else, so I’ve been waiting to start coughing up flowers any day now. But it’s been weeks, and you’ve slowly been coughing up fewer and fewer flowers, and I got a doctor to check. I don’t have hanahaki. Which means…” he trails off.

 

“I love you too,” Barry says, half conformation, half declaration. He’s not sure which of them moves first, but they meet in a kiss.

 

They have to stop when Barry starts coughing, a cough that yields three small snowdrops.

 

They’re the last flowers he ever coughs up.

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: this story centers around a disease, and so has references to various medical things and the possibilities of dying from said disease. There is also implicit suicidal ideation on Barry's part. You know your own mileage best. Please be kind to yourselves, and feel free to leave a comment if you would like clarification on anything.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Flower That Blooms In Adversity (Is The Most Rare And Beautiful Of All) [podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13209444) by [litrapod (litra)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/litra/pseuds/litrapod)




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